“I have never seen it but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.”

The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.

When I look in the mirror, I see someone who’s happy with how he looks, because I was never one of the handsome Hollywood people. And I’ve had success as I’ve gotten older, because I’m able to play characters. I no longer get the girl, but I get the part.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he’s that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it’s not, I assure you.

In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it.

I’ve never taken drugs – if you take a drug of your choice, you get some ecstatic feeling.

I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got.

Obsession is a young man’s game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.

I don’t see myself as anything. I just wander around getting on with my life.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

There was a certain moment. I was about 61 – two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying – “I don’t wanna do it. The part’s too small.” And he sent it back to me, he said, “You shouldn’t read the lover. You should read the father.

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

I never look back at all. All of my sentiment and emotion goes into my family. I’m an extremely family oriented person and I have a very, very happy family life. That doesn’t just include blood relations. I have friends who are close to me.

I think life has got to develop as you get older, and I don’t want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life.

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.

Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.

It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy.

Give someone responsibility and they will do their best. Make them accountable and they will do even better.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

When the people become involved in their government, government becomes more accountable, and our society is stronger, more compassionate, and better prepared for the challenges of the future.

Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!